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Eva Green, Ewan McGregor, Connie Nielsen, Ewen Bremner, Stephen Dillane ... see more see more... , Denis Lawson

A hit at Sundance '11 and winner of the Ediburgh Film Festival's prize for Best New British Feature, the amazing genre creation directed by David Mackenzie stars Eva Green and Ewan McGregor as witness... read more read more...es to the end of the world-- strangers who form a desperate romantic connection in the face of an apocalyptic epidemic of sensory loss. -- (C) IFC

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62% liked it

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51% liked it

47 critics

R, 1 hr. 28 min.

Directed by: David MacKenzie, David Mackenzie

Release Date: February 3, 2012

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DVD Release Date: May 22, 2012

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Flixster Reviews (262)

  • romy861
    April 9, 2012
    romy861
    Pretty depressing movie, reminded me a little of "Blindness". It was well made and kept me interested, but I can't honestly say I got to the end and felt glad I had watched it.
  • blacksheepboy
    April 3, 2012
    blacksheepboy
    Inexplicably bashed by many critics, this is a surprisingly optimistic and vivid take on the overused apocalyptic scenario. An honest romance that is really touching and beautiful, even if sometimes the stylized direction and some involuntarily funny scenes stand in the way.
  • MrMarakai
    February 29, 2012
    MrMarakai
    Director David MacKenzie heads back to the city of Glasgow with Ewan McGregor, after their first collaboration in 2003's "Young Adam". That was a gritty and powerful film but here, both of them have excelled themselves, in one of the years most criminally overlooked films.
    Micha... read moreel (Ewan McGregor) is a Glaswegian chef who falls for scientist Susan (Eva Green). She happens to be investigating an epidemic and as they are getting to know each other, people the world over, begin to develop some strange behaviour which leads to them losing their sensory perceptions. First, the sense of smell goes, then taste and so on...
    This may be compared (with it's apocalyptic theme) to the recent Steven Soderbergh, lethal epidemic, film "Contagion", or more so, Fernando Meirelles' similar "Blindness" but you'd be doing this film a disservice if you go into it with preconceived ideas based on those lethargic and jaded deliveries. This is a completely immersive human drama that packs some real power and has more in common with one of my favourite films of recent years - Alfonso Cauron's "Children Of Men". It has the same stark approach; the authentic feel for the frailty of our society and the same potential demise of humankind. If the end was indeed nigh, you'd expect a bit of chaos and people acting, more than a little, peeved but director Mackenzie and screenwriter Kim Fupz Aakeson never force this issue, allowing the drama to unfold at it's own pace, with highly effective mood established by the great use of austere Glasgow locations and haunting music by Max Richter. The two leads also help by delivering believable characters with subtlety and McGregor is given a rare chance to show his range - which he delivers admirably. Fine support is also supplied around him, particularly, some slight comic-relief from his "Trainspotting" co-star Ewen Bremner. The film itself, is essentially a love story but it's a harrowing and heartbreaking one. As the couple are getting in touch with their feelings and exploring their love for each other, they are losing their sensory perceptions one by one. It's an intriguing premise that builds slowly and Mackenzie's assured mirroring of the sensory perceptions waning, allow the audience to better understand how it feels, before delivering one of the most powerful and unrelenting endings of the year.
    An unconventional, thoughtful and ultimately poetic, 'end of days' drama that deserves to find a wider audience. In a year of films dealing with the nature of our existence - "The Tree of Life"; "Melancholia" and "Another Earth", this stands as good as, if not better. Simply magnificent.
  • groaningbitch
    January 24, 2012
    groaningbitch
    pefect sense is like camus' plague with a romantic twist, an apocalypse interpetated through a postive, humantarianized perspective. the title perfect sense is misleading because there's no perfect sense in this case, more like "let us retrospect the love we've had before we lose... read more all the senses." the title perfect sense is just a catchy slogan which is irrelevant to the picture. inevitably, the film adapts some ecological, leftist discourse as background to give it an intellectual touch: humans gradually fail to grasp the senses they've taken for granted due to the harm they've done to the environment.

    so the story whirls around a man and a woman who are inflicted with some issues with romance of their own. their love is intensified along with the worsening of this sense-losing contagion. to a certain point, they've lost everything except the final embrace they could have from each other as in the end, everyone in the world cannot smell, listen or even see anything at all. but my question would be, how about people who don't have a lover, who have no family? so they die alone without a redeeming solace? perfect sense is surely an utopic dystopian picture which has high expectation/estimation of humanity as if the scriptor assumes that all humans would eventually forgive each other and embrace their one-remaining love out there. it's quite a overtly optimistic premise of human nature. but on the other hand, i've been fed up with those sensationally negative amargeddon craps from hollywood as if the end of man becomes an opportunity for american hero to show off the size of his balls, the magnitude of his machismo since he's just fucking man enough to carry the weight of the world all upon his trust-worthy shoulders. perfect sense here seems to make a low-key, down-to-earth statement "if the world ends, no one could save it, okay, let it be, life goes on!" (fine, love it!)

    but one thing i do wish to "complain"..hm, more like a major drawback of this picture: the reactions people have when they lose their senses are sort of too MELODRAMATIC and oddly uniformed. (yes, i believe i would go insane if i suddenly cannot smell or listen, but not in THAT way)..also, the way the couple meet in the picture seems a bit contrived, and i don't believe that two people could heat it on just like THAT, almost too cute: a woman just bursts out of tears in the memories of her diseased father then the guy follows her to console her then innocently sleep beside her and weep together with her. yeah, but ewan mcgregor is the guy who is capable to sell you that with his handsome, guileless face! especially when he's paired with woman like eva green, who is just enticingly beautiful enoguh to convince you, that could happen. they seem to have great chemistry with those heart-felt smiles and gestures of intimacy, which tend to draw great envy as if you wish you were in love just like that. the leads' chemistry compensate the defect of such CAMPY script.

    the movie's drawback is also its engrossing point, the simplified character-portrayals in minor characters (people outside the leads) effectively enhance the major story with a fable-esque aura, more like contemporalized myth/fairy-tale with appropriate amount of complex nuances in its subplots, an anti-thesis to the popular apoclyptic stories which tend to maneuver to complicate the stories with all the negative elements - a grandeur macrocosmos which absorbs each darkness and encompasses all the wild doomsday adventures as one giant adrenalizer..usually the backset is complicated with all the problems surrounding the major characters, but the major human characters are quite often flat and two-dimensional - desperate humans who have no time to think, busy with staying alive or saving the world.

    but here, perfect sense is a tale developed through the microcosmos of two individuals whose personalities are complicated with the details of their past which contribute to their present emotional obstacles while the backdrop is quite simplified, things happen in much slower pace. thus the central focus is on the humans - the couples. as if it's saying, even the doomsday is approaching, there's still time for us to reflect oursevles and ruminate things over, and have one final everlastingly long hug with our beloved ones. gee, it's quite humanistic, but almost too adorbaly idealistic..(but it's quite pleasantly refreshing to see a apocalypse picture based on humans and the idea of humanity.)
  • fb100001050230219
    December 16, 2011
    fb100001050230219
    ''Perfect Sense'' is kind of a combination of ''Contagion'' and ''Never Let Me Go''. The former did a great job of showing how a virus would destroy humanity in this day and age, while the latter was the more emotional of the two.
    David McKenzie, for the most part, managed to bal... read moreance the heart and the fear of the virus well in his sci-fi drama. The performances are solid and McKenzie does a solid job with his direction, doing some very interesting things with the camera at times. But where ''Perfect Sense'' shines is in its last 20 minutes, which are devastating, tense and very impactful. It's some of the best filmmaking I've seen all year, as due to the plot, McKenzie had a difficult job of executing some rather challenging shots and set-pieces, but he rose to the challenge.
    Though Ewan McGregor and Eva Green are great and their relationship started off well, I felt as though as it progressed, it played out in the more generic way. Generic is something ''Perfect Sense'' is not, except for that side of the film. Scenes of their affection that could've been done through back-story or good dialogue are replaced by rather unnecessary and repetitive love scenes and at times mediocre dialogue. But the beginning and ending of ''Perfect Sense'' makes it worth watching and it always keeps you engaged and proves rather thought-provoking.
  • fb1341085175
    October 23, 2011
    fb1341085175
    It succeeeds in doing what "Contagion" failed to do - creating genuine human drama amidst the pandemonium, and with a much smaller budget.
  • moviewaffle
    October 23, 2011
    moviewaffle
    One of the most popular hypothetical questions we like to ask is if we had to lose four of our senses, which one would we keep? This movie leaves you in no doubt that sight is the one to hold onto.
    A global pandemic is causing the populous to lose their senses one by one. The fi... read morerst to go is smell and after the initial panic it's accepted and the world moves on. After all, of all the species on earth we are one of the least dependent on this sense. Next comes taste. Woah, you mean we can't enjoy food anymore? This really depresses people but after some time life goes on. It's when hearing goes that all hell really breaks loose, plunging society into chaos.
    Caught up in this are McGregor and Green, a couple who are beginning a passionate romance. She's just had her heart broken by a previous lover and he's previously suffered from commitment issues. In movie land how can they not end up together?
    The movie is a curious hybrid of romance and apocalyptic drama, and it succeeds very well at both. Shot on a low budget in Glasgow, the scenes of chaos are well represented given the financial constraints. As far as the romantic aspect goes, if you take a date to see this and you don't get laid the relationship just wasn't meant to be. Women were literally bawling their eyes out all around me at the end.
    I must extend a sarcastic thanks to the staff at Cineworld who ruined the ending by turning the lights on too early. You'll know what I mean when you see the film, which you should.
  • panta2
    February 24, 2012
    panta2
    This odd and intriguing drama directed by David Mackenzie and written by Kim Fupz Aakeson premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival... I liked this love story of two people who fall in love just as an epidemic begins to rob the world's population of their sensory perceptions. ... read moreYes, some people will find this film frustrating at times, but I really enjoyed the concept of the screen poetry which makes you think - big time! Eva Green and Ewan McGregor had enough chemistry between themselves to makes us believe that it's perfectly natural that they stayed together as their world evaporates into darkness and silence. All the different unusual distress scenes and the changing pace will hold your attention till the end... which is "something else"! Recently I saw few movies who gave me a choice of bang ending or big bang ending - and after seeing this one I started to have a preference for ending with a cuddle!

    Not a bad viewing!
  • xas5
    May 27, 2012
    xas5
    Wonderfully blending genres, Perfect Sense presents a love story centered in the middle of an apocalyptic landscape where the masses are experiencing sensory loss. The film carries on lifelike, never feeling forced or unrealistic. Ewan McGregor and Eva Green offer the perfect pai... read morering, both delivering surprise performances. David MacKenzie is a director who knows what he wants and, through narration and dialogue, creates one of the best films of the year.
  • Nutterjr
    January 14, 2012
    Nutterjr
    An original but oddly unexpected story of love, that tickles all your senses and challenges you to re-assess the connection between each one of them and our lives' experiences. The director does amazing job of conveying strong feelings though subtle metaphors and clever visual a... read morend audio tricks.

View All Perfect Sense Reviews

Critic Reviews

Lisa Schwarzbaum
February 8, 2012
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

An intriguing apocalyptic romance with a multi-purpose title. Full Review

James Berardinelli
February 7, 2012
James Berardinelli, ReelViews

The problem with Perfect Sense is its inability to be effective as either a character-based love story or something larger and more bold. Full Review

Lou Lumenick
February 3, 2012
Lou Lumenick, New York Post

People around the world progressively lose their senses of smell, taste, hearing and, finally, sight. Too bad the filmmakers never seem to have had a sense of humor in the first place. Full Review

Stephen Holden
February 2, 2012
Stephen Holden, New York Times

A solemn sci-fi parable set in present-day Glasgow, whose deepening sense of foreboding is sustained by the enigmatic, pseudo-biblical reflections of an unseen narrator. Full Review

Andrew Lapin
February 2, 2012
Andrew Lapin, NPR

It's difficult to impart feelings of profound sadness with an image of Ewan McGregor shoving a stick of butter in his mouth. Full Review

Joe Neumaier
February 2, 2012
Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News

Sadly, even aficionados of the Cinema of Extinction may make "Perfect Sense" an Omega choice. Full Review

Richard Corliss
February 1, 2012
Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine

In staying together as their world evaporates into darkness and silence, they are displaying what anyone in love would recognize as quiet heroism - and perfect sense. Full Review

Rex Reed
January 31, 2012
Rex Reed, New York Observer

If you crave action, dialogue, explanations, character revelations and clear plot resolutions, Perfect Sense never lives up to its title. Full Review

Mark Holcomb
January 31, 2012
Mark Holcomb, Village Voice

Satisfyingly ambiguous and starkly tactile in its inquiry into where sensation ends and identity begins, David Mackenzie's rampaging-virus movie doesn't dodge genre potholes so much as it stays off th... Full Review

David Edelstein
January 30, 2012
David Edelstein, New York Magazine

You've got to make room in your heart for a film in which the world ends with neither a bang nor a whimper but a cuddle. Full Review

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    • Susan: Then there's the other movement... farmers going out to milk their cows... soldiers reporting for duty. Those who believe that life will go on somehow... or just don't know what else to do. People prepare for the worst... but hope for the best. They concentrate on the things that are important to them. All the things beyond fat and flour.
    • Michael: I think it's okay to panic now.
    • Michael: What do you do... when you're not eating?
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